Target will pay 350K employees an extra $200 bonus this holiday season

Target will pay 350,000 workers an extra $200 bonus for their hard work during the holidays. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi shares the details.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance On the Move. We're watching shares of Target right now, they're up about 1%. But there's more to that story than meets the eye. Let's bring in Brian Sozzi to talk about a big bonus coming the way of more than a quarter million people, Brian.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, Target opening up its checkbook again today, Adam, saying they're going to give $200 bonuses to 350,000 of their employees. This is the fourth time Target has stepped up here and given a bonus to its employees during the pandemic. And the bottom line is this is the cost of doing business for Target, Walmart, and Costco.

And it's interesting to me, and it's also very much sad. Costco has been raked over the coals by Wall Street analysts in recent weeks for continuing its $2 an hour pandemic pay. You have to keep employees happy. And especially in retail, these retail workers are being asked to do more than they ever have before.

Not only stock shelves, you have to service employees in a new way. And you also have to pick goods off of shelves, in the case of Target, and in many cases, ship that to online orders. You're doing more work, you're being worked to the ground. Give them $200, let them enjoy their holiday season.

JULIE HYMAN: And then maybe they can spend that money too, I guess, is part of the thing from an economic perspective. Meanwhile, Brian, as all of these companies are getting ready for the holiday season, it sounds like FedEx and UPS are already all booked up. How does that work in terms of them getting all the goods out to people who need them ahead of the holidays?

BRIAN SOZZI: I'm not surprised, Julie. A good story here in "The Wall Street Journal" over the weekend looking how FedEx and UPS are, in fact, all booked up. And I'm not surprised. And that's why I encourage everyone to go out there and get your holiday shopping done early. Because with the crush of online orders, the last thing FedEx and UPS wants is to get that crush of orders and people not get their holiday gifts.

You go out there on Instagram and Twitter, and you complain about UPS and FedEx. That's the last thing they want, and I'm sure Adam could speak to this even more. These shippers have done a good job. You know, they've added a lot of new capacity, especially UPS, this year to service the world during COVID-19.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Yeah, the issue, though, is for the Amazons of the world, the third party deliveries within the major cities, like LaserShip. Do they live up to the standards they have? Brian, I was curious, though, when you speak to the major retailers, we saw retail sales driven, what was it, up 1.9% in September. And a lot of that was clothing.

And we just heard from Steve Lamar that the tariffs are still hitting. But at least people who have disposable income are buying clothes, even in the pandemic. So do you hear from Target? Do you hear from Walmart? Are they the ones selling these clothes, or is it higher end, more-- might even be specialty leisure and athletic wear?

BRIAN SOZZI: It is the higher end stuff. So Julie, that is the Lululemons of the world, it's also VF Corp. You know, I talked to VF Corp.'s CEO on Friday afternoon after earnings, and he's saying, hey, you know what? We gained a lot more space on floors right now because so many of the brands may not exist. They don't have the capital to get the goods on the floor.

And a lot of these big name retailers, like a Dick's Sporting Goods, like a Target, they're only giving floor space to the top, top brand. And if you're not in the top brands, good luck driving sales this holiday season.